Start Again
by Captain L
Summary: When you're cut down, start again. Rated T for scary moments, mention of a lesbian.


**Start Again**

31Days: "The Doctor Isn't Here"  
No Pairings; features Vaan, Fran, Balthier, and Basch  
Started 23:59 GMT 14 January 2007  
Finished 02:59 GMT 15 January 2007  
Rated T for scary imagery and character torture  
Spoilers until the group returns to Rabanastre

* * *

Fran noticed it first. Keener-than-average senses and sharp skills of observation—these were her blessing, and her curse. She was pleased to know of the situation, in so far as one could be pleased by the knowing and not by the existing. She was chagrined by her helplessness to stop it.

The last two restless days of marching and fighting were taking their toll.

Basch fon Ronsenburg was breaking.

Since Fran had released the cage and chains, she knew that time was short. Two years of confinement and severe malnutrition could be overcome by adrenaline and willpower—but only for so long. She had hoped they could make it to town before his will fell to physicality, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that could not be.

She had pressed them onward with quiet insistence, then encouragement, then finally angry glares and short words. The captain, noble as he was, told the boy that they should rest whenever necessary with respect to the heat and the sun. However, every time they stopped to rest, it took a little longer to start again.

Fran could easily prevent such a problem by insisting that they keep moving. However, other problems became apparent at noon of the second day, as they made their way west and ever southward. He was losing focus.

Basch knew he was losing focus, and he let Balthier and the boy take the lead. He could feel his muscles protesting so much motion after so many long months of suspension. His feet ached with a fire that rivalled the sunburn on his long-shaded skin, and he was moving slower.

In the early afternoon, he stumbled for the first time. Fran braced him with a hand on his elbow, and steadied him—she had seen his unsteadiness and placed herself near at hand.

He looked up at her cautiously. He knew he was in trouble.

She nodded back, and released his arm. "We are near the Estersand. Soon, we will come upon a camp."

He closed his eyes for a moment, but opened them with a jolt as he lost track of the ground and a sharp chill overtook him. He vowed to keep his eyes open for as long as he could.

They started again.

In the middle of the afternoon, hyenas began to follow the group, noticing the wiry, sick-looking straggler at the back. The smell of Basch's ill-acquired armour did not help the situation. At first, Vaan would charge after them, swinging away and shouting to scare them off; this worked for awhile, but hyenas would gather again, one by one, after the group continued.

The sun shone crimson in the west, descending into the shadows and glinting off the distant skyline of Rabanastre, when Basch collapsed with a faint groan. The wolves were on him almost instantly, though Fran shot arrows and spells almost indiscriminately. Balthier and Vaan turned and barrelled into them, swinging and shooting, but the wolves were intent on their prey. Only after a good number of them lie dead did the others retreat, yelping and making a great deal of fuss.

Vaan dragged a wolf carcass away as Fran casted Cure on the fallen captain and applied a tuft of phoenix feathers.

Basch groaned softly and shivered. Fran knelt beside him and turned him, forcibly pushing him up to sit. His skin was clammy beneath her hands.

"I need help to carry him. The outpost is only a little ahead; he can rest there." Fran threw his arm over her shoulders, allowing Balthier to do the same on the other side. Together, they dragged the barely-conscious man across the sand. Vaan warded off any interested creatures.

They entered the camp as the sun disappeared, leaving long shadows and red hues behind it. A small boy gave them entrance to a large tent, where they found many bedrolls set in lines. No one occupied the tent but them.

Fran detached her coin-purse from her belt and thrust it at Vaan. "Boy. Go the rest of the way into town. Find nanna milk and a healer that is either friendly to the resistance or is of my kind. With any coin that remains, hire a chocobo. Go quickly!"

Vaan sprinted out of the camp, throwing sand behind his heals.

"Sure he won't just abscond with our coin?" Balthier wondered, sitting opposite Fran.

"He is honest, as Humes go," Fran replied wryly.

Basch shivered and groaned again, the wiry remains of his muscles spasming and releasing at random, at odds with each other and his bony frame. His stomach, long forgotten, seized; his throat, long dry, tasted blood. He choked weakly and gasped, a tiny stream of it forcing its way from his cracked lips. As he quieted momentarily, he fought to steady his breath.

Fran took one of his hands and worked her thumbs through the knots in his palm and wrist. Balthier did the same on the other side. After several moments, his eyelids drooped, his breathing evened, deepened…

And slowed.

"No, no, can't do that now," Balthier chided gently, slapping the other man softly about the cheeks. "Captain Basch fon Ronsenburg survives two years unjust imprisonment at the hands of the Empire, just to die in a tent in the Estersand? Nonsense."

Basch's eyes widened again, focusing on Balthier, and his breathing started again.

Fran used a single finger to wipe up the stream of blood at the corner of his mouth, and frowned momentarily. She retrieved a potion from her pack and motioned to Balthier. As he lifted him and tilted his head back, Fran tipped a mouthful of the potion into Basch's mouth, then set the bottle aside.

Basch took the mouthful of the potion and closed his jaw around it, but struggled against himself, succeeding only in choking. He closed his eyes tightly and ground his teeth, but could not get his throat muscles to do his will. He'd forgotten how to make them work.

Fran gently rubbed her fingers along his throat until she felt the muscles work, and he swallowed.

He tensed from brow to toe-tips and gasped, the potion doing its work on the insides of his throat and into his stomach.

Fran repeated the process until the potion was gone, then Balthier eased him back to the bedroll.

Basch remained tense, muscle spasms returning with a vengeance. He did not cry out, but he wrenched his eyes shut and shook.

"Is this all we can do?" Balthier asked, taking up Basch's left hand again but being careful not to look at him.

Fran nodded silently, taking up Basch's right hand and repeating her firm patterns with her thumbs. "We cannot give him naught but potions and water. He has forgotten how to swallow, much less eat. I would rather have seen him to town, and let the resistance take care of this unpleasantness."

"My… apologies…" came a strained voice from the bedroll. "…and my thanks…"

Fran smiled gently at him and continued kneading her thumbs into his wrist, releasing the incompliant muscle tissue. "Necessity has stopped us here," she told him gently. "The healer will know more than I, how to handle such a case. Only once have the Viera taken refugees into our village, and many years ago. They came to us in varying stages of malnutrition."

"So you've seen this before," Balthier said with audible relief. "Good, because I certainly have not."

Fran mouthed words to her partner. _'Most died.'_

He froze for a moment, and then glanced at the door of the tent. "What's taking that boy so long? It's been nigh on half an hour, already."

Basch opened his mouth to say something, but his jaw seized and broke open his lip in the process. Blood dribbled down his chin. He gasped.

Fran closed her eyes and laid a hand on his forehead, casting Sleep, in hopes of saving him from more pain.

His eyes drifted closed and his breathing deepened, but the spasms still shook him at random intervals, making him twitch.

Balthier frowned deeply and bowed his head, then studied Basch's face. "I… when I was a judge… I knew his brother."

Fran watched her partner intently, her thumbs making patterns up to her patient's elbow.

After a moment, the pirate continued. "I knew the twin brother he speaks of—Gabranth, they call him now." Balthier gave a fleeting half-smile. "He was a bit of a bastard, but he was more honest and more sensible than most of the tin-wrapped power-eaters they call judges. He spoke on loyalty to the country, now and again, but I don't think Gabranth knows what loyalty is, not compared to this one here. It… it will be a shame, if he dies." He dropped his gaze to Basch's hand. "A damnable shame."

The Viera lay the captain's hand back at his side and listened intently to her partner.

Balthier chuckled bitterly. "I'd like to be noble, understand? I'd like to say I fail to understand how someone can turn on their own family, but, what with my father and all…"

Fran set her hand on his shoulder supportively. "War takes us places we do not wish to go—takes us away from home. Beliefs separate us from our families and friends of peacetime, and in the end, we can only be true to ourselves. Is that not what you taught me?"

Balthier smiled wanly. "It's… it is how things are, I suppose. But it is not how things should be."

She nodded and squeezed his shoulder.

"If I ever see Gabranth again," Balthier whispered, "I'm going to put a bullet in his throat."

"If you do not," she assured him in her smooth purr, "I shall make sure that someone else does."

There was the sound of footsteps outside, then the door-flap flung open and Vaan hurtled in, nearly knocking into the lantern suspended near the entrance. He slid to a stop next to Fran and handed her a full wineskin full of what smelled to be nanna milk.

"Where's the healer?" Balthier demanded abruptly.

Vaan didn't wait to catch his breath. "Not… coming… no healer… but tonight Old Dalan is sending… chocobos… no healer friendly to the resistance in town, but he sent for one, be here in two days. Have to get into town when it's dark, the imperials might get suspicious."

At the non-verbal prompt from Fran, Balthier lifted Basch again and wedged himself at his back, keeping Basch's head at the crook of his shoulder. Fran tipped some of the nanna milk into the unconscious man's mouth, then held his mouth closed and rubbed his throat.

"That stuff was expensive—what's so special about it?" Vaan wondered, finally catching his breath. He made himself useful, taking the wineskin from her and replacing it with a potion, then alternating as she demanded.

"Very nutritional, but easy to process," she told him shortly, tipping the last of a second potion into his mouth. "We will need a bucket of some sort. Hurry."

Vaan shot up and out of the tent again, appearing a moment later with a large wooden bowl. "Will this do?"

Fran snatched it out of his hands and held it in front of Basch just in time.

Basch began to choke, then shake. Balthier sat him up and forward, holding up steady as he reversed Fran's prior work.

After Basch stilled, she held the half-full bowl out to Vaan. "It will do fine. Please empty it."

Vaan took it and hesitated.

"_Away_ from the camp," she added.

He made a face and walked out, taking care not to spill the refuse.

Balthier pulled Basch to recline again.

Basch whined softly, eyes blearily seeking Fran's. "No more."

"I am very sorry," she told him, squeezing his hand. "This is the only way."

He closed his eyes and rested his head back against Balthier's shoulder.

"Ready?" she asked him, as Vaan returned with the empty bowl.

"Mm," he grunted.

Many hours passed. The heat of the sun quickly evaporated from the sands and the cold of deep night replaced it. The stars shone brightly in the desert sky above them, points of brilliance in the black. A fire burned in the centre of the camp. The permanent residents had long since gone to sleep, having offered whatever help they could. The night watch sat on a high ledge with his crossbow, silent.

Balthier sat beside the fire, willing his hands and feet to warm; he stared without focus into the flames, deep in thought. He was relatively certain the watch had fallen asleep—a fate he dearly wished for himself—but he was to be awake to greet whoever this 'Old Dalan' sent for them. His mind, deprived of rest for far too long, skipped between the battles of the previous two days, his days of acquaintance with the judge Gabranth, holding the withered captain as Fran mercilessly reintroduced sustenance to his dying body, the waterway, the escape from the palace, the stranger in the—

_…you don't suppose…_

The haughty young lady in the waterway. He hadn't caught a name, but he knew her, indeed. Well, knew _of_ her; he had never made her acquaintance, personally. But he would wager his ship that he knew who she was.

He filed the information away for later. What with his own near-miss with the bounty hunters after him, he had been a bit too distracted to fully analyze the events after landing in Rabanastre and sneaking into the palace.

_The boy still has the stone. This could prove problematic._

A light floated in the centre of the southwest entrance to camp.

Balthier rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, certain that he was losing his mind.

The light resolved itself into a lantern, carried by a warmly-dressed woman. She was leading a few chocobos, which she brought around the fire and towards the tent. "Whoa," she said softly, bringing them to a halt. She flung three sets of reigns over the posts meant for just that, and gave the night watch a wave.

The night watch waved back, and pointed to Balthier.

Balthier, feeling a bit left out, waved as well. "You were sent by—"

"Yes," she answered curtly. "Vaan is with you?"

He nodded, and led her into the tent.

Fran was sprawled out on the bed roll next to Basch, snoring softly in her exhaustion. Vaan was sitting watch over Basch, who lay as still as the dead. Decuria's eyes lingered on Fran for a moment, then snapped to Vaan.

"Decuria," Vaan greeted quietly. "Hey."

The woman (Balthier ventured a wild guess that her name was Decuria), nodded in reply. She crossed the tent and knelt across from Vaan, checking Basch's vitals. "How is he?"

"Weak," he replied. "Fran and Balthier got some milk and potion to stay down, finally. He only stopped shaking a half-hour ago."

Decuria motioned for Vaan to help lift him. "The moogles sent me with three chocobos, on the condition that we return them by morning and we don't run them too hard. He'll have to ride with someone light, and someone will have to ride double."

Vaan nodded.

"He can ride with me," Balthier offered. "I'm strong enough to keep hold of him. You can ride with Fran, if you like."

Decuria flushed crimson, and shot a glance at Fran, then at Balthier, then at Fran, then she seemed to stare at the sky for a moment.

Vaan chuckled softly.

"What?" Balthier wondered, crestfallen.

"Maybe Basch better go with Decuria," Vaan suggested, "or with Fran. Or I can ride with Decuria."

"Huh? Oh!" the sky pirate suddenly understood the fierce blush.

"Not that I don't appreciate you offering," Decuria tried to suppress a smirk, "But I don't think your partner would appreciate it very much. Their kind has… a lot of rules."

Balthier nodded. "Not a problem. Fran can ride with me. You can ride solo or take Basch. That will make it easier to split up if necessary, as well."

Decuria turned to the task at hand. She and Vaan gently lifted Basch and carried him from the tent.

Balthier awoke Fran quietly. "Our ride is here. We best be off."

Fran stretched and stood, quietly murmuring, "I suppose it would be useless to ask for five more minutes?" She smiled sleepily. "It _is _a Hume custom to do so, is it not?"

He smiled back and shook his head, and they followed the others outside.

It took some doing to get Basch onto the chocobo in front of Decuria. Decuria mounted first, and the others half-lifted, half-pushed the captain up to her. Basch tried his best to help, but his comprehension of his surroundings was severely limited by his wanderings in and out of consciousness. Some awkward manoeuvring later, she had him mostly secure. Vaan, Balthier, and Fran mounted, and their haggardly journey started again.

It wasn't until they were moving that Basch awoke long enough to form a definite idea about where he was. His first action was to half-heartedly slap the left hand of the person behind him, then mutter about incorrect riding form. "That's incorrect for riding distance with an injured party," he chided half-heartedly.

Decuria smirked, then adjusted; she released the reigns with her left hand and wrapped her left arm around his waist, pulling him back to rest against her. "For once, I'm glad to hear you correcting me."

"Decuria?" he wondered, bringing his hands up to her arm, checking to see if she was really there. "You're—"

"Yes, it's me," she whispered, giving him an affectionate squeeze. "Just hold on, Captain. We'll have you taken care of, don't you worry."

"You're alive," he whispered, smiling openly.

She smiled back, resting the side of her face against the top of his head, fighting the jolting motion of the chocobo so as not to bash her skull into his. "You think _you're_ surprised, sir? You should have been there when Vaan told Old Dalan about _you._"

"Thank the Gods," he whispered again, huddling close to her warmer form. "The battle, at Nabradia… I thought you died."

She paused for a long moment, and when she spoke again her tone was bitter. "I fell. My entire division fell. I led some of my injured out of the city, to where the 57th Healers was supposed to be waiting, but they killed the healers. Those thrice-damned goat-raping bastards _killed_ anentire division_ of healers_. I led mine as far out of the way as I could, and then I came back. I fought until… until I couldn't. I remember waking up in a field of the dead, then I remember dragging myself into the hills to escape the Imperials. Whoever was on the field, whoever wasn't dead… they killed them, too."

He sighed and accepted all the physical contact he could get, however awkward. "It was a brave thing that you did, going back."

She shook her head, then smiled gently and gave him another affectionate embrace. "I saw you ride out with Lord Rasler. It was a brave thing, _you_ did."

He frowned. "Lord Rasler fell," he replied simply.

"I know," she murmured. "I saw you ride toward home, with him. That was brave, too."

"I failed," he lamented. "I failed Lord Rasler, then I failed King Raminas, then I failed Lady Ashe." He began to shake a little, and he braced himself for the return of his spasms.

Decuria kicked the chocobo to run a little faster, circling toward the south gates of the city. "No, no you did not," she told him firmly. She dropped her voice, ducking her head to speak beside his ear. "Lady Ashelia lives."

He gripped her left arm with the will of a man possessed, but the strength of a kitten.

"She lives, and she fights with the resistance, and she _needs us_," she said. "She needs _you._ All the world thinks you murdered the king, and they need to know the truth. All of Dalmasca and all the world needs to know the deeds of the Empire. Only then will they rise up—only then will Rozzaria come to our aide. Help us put the queen back on her throne, Captain."

Basch listened to her speech with all the focus he could muster, feeling his body turn on itself once again.

Decuria kicked the chocobo again. "Captain, _I _still need you. You have to be here to tell all of us would-be knights what to do, remember?"

He smiled, despite himself. "Lieutenant Decuria, get me home," he told her. "That's an order."

"Sir yes sir," she replied a little louder, giving the chocobo one final kick. Basch lost consciousness again as Decuria brought their mount into the south gate and slowing, stopping next to the chocobo pen. She passed her charge to the waiting hands of Azelas Vossler and slid from the saddle, giving the reigns to Gurdy and bowing her thanks. As she and Vossler carried Basch through the cargo gate into Lowtown, the other two chocobos rode up behind them.

Vaan, Balthier, and Fran made it through the gate just as it closed.

"This is where we split up," Balthier announced, sounding more sure than he looked. His gaze followed the other three. "I'll not be identified with the resistance, you understand. There are a pretty number of imperials after Fran and myself, already."

Vaan nodded. "Thanks for your help," he told them. "Oh, and… here." He passed a coin purse back to Fran. "That's your money you sent me with, plus a thank-you from… those people you don't want to be identified with."

Fran took the money. Balthier met Vaan's eyes. "We shall be in town awhile. If you would… let me know if… if his condition changes. For better or worse." Fran pursed her lips in agreement. Together, they departed.

Vaan watched them go for a moment, then smiled crookedly to himself; he decided right then that he wanted to be Balthier when he grew up. If he grew up.

But in that moment, he had to go be Vaan; and so, he scuffed his boots against the stone-paved floor and made his way to Old Dalan's place to see if he could be of any help. Then, he was due for a very, very long nap.


End file.
